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I recently won a brand new (super duper special, unreleased) new flavor of vegan cheese from my favorite vegan cheese producer, Punk Rawk Labs. I wanted to share the experience of tasting it for the first time with all of you, so I made a video.

If you were reading my twitter feed last night you may already have an idea of what I’m going to share today. I finished cooking and taking photos for this post right before the new X Files episode premiered. It took a bit longer than I thought it would –taking photos of your food as you cook does make it take twice as long to prepare– so for the first time in my life, I was actually happy that some football game was delaying The X Files.

The X Files revival, by the way, was amazing. It was camp, it was nostalgic, it was everything I remember loving about it when I was a teenager. I realized during the episode how much I’ve missed the characters, Scully and Mulder, even Skinner. I’m really excited for the monster-of-the-week episodes they’ve promised…

Whoops… my nerd was showing… On to the salad.

Vegan Chicken Grilled Cheese Caesar Salad is one of my favorite dinners. It’s perfect for a weeknight, it can be put together in under an hour, and it’s got a ton of delicious, nutritious greens. Continue reading →

You may have been asking yourself: “I wonder what Kate did with that second ball of delicious pizza dough…”

Wonder no more!

Since we already covered the dough portion of delicious pizza, it’s time to talk sauce. I like my pizza sauce garlicky, with a punch of oregano and bit of spice. I also want it to have some texture, so it features prominently on the pizza and doesn’t just seem like an obligatory condiment.

The great part of this recipe is that it’s pretty fast. It’s a quick cooking sauce that goes from mise en place to cooling on your counter in about 20 minutes.Continue reading →

In fact, I might be as much a fan of vegan cheeses as I was a fan of dairy cheeses (oh, so very many years ago…). I recently acquired some Fresh VeganMozz from Miyoko’s Creamery. It’s relatively new to the line of Miyoko’s Creamery cheeses and very much in demand. The first time I tried to buy it, went out of stock faster than I could order it. When I saw it was back, I ordered two packages of it immediately, just to be safe.

After having it both hot on pizza and cold in a caprese salad, I prefer the Fresh VeganMozz hot. It’s still pretty tasty, but I don’t like the texture as much when it’s cold. When it’s melted however, it has a delightfully creamy texture and this rich, slightly salty flavor that you expect from fresh mozzarella. It adds such a smooth, buttery mouthfeel to pizza, it’s hard to believe it’s vegan.

What better to make with a fresh mozzarella-style vegan cheese than Pizza Margherita?

Even though it’s the middle of January, we were able to find some really flavorful campari tomatoes at Costco. Good fresh tomatoes are key to this recipe. If you can find some this time of year, grab them. Grab them and then make this pizza! When we were tasting the recipe, I turned to Tom and said “Holy god this is amazing.” It is literally, the best pizza margherita I can remember eating.

In addition the recipe for the Pizza Margherita I made, I’m going to share with you my tried and true pizza crust recipe. It’s long, but worth it.

Citizen Fox, frequent participant in Bay Area Vegan popup events over the last year or so, has recently moved into its own –albeit temporary– brick and mortar location on Mission street at 19th in San Francisco while they renovate their permanent space down the block. The 2293 Mission Street location is an airy, open space with several long, communal tables in the middle of the restaurant and a row of semiprivate snug booths off to one side. Illustrations of animals hang above the private tables and a gorgeous, floor to ceiling mural adorns the wall opposite the booths. The most impressive attribute of the space is the back wall of the bar. Reaching all the way to the rafters, the mirrored, softly lit shelving houses the restaurant’s extensive selection of liqueurs and spirits.

This Sunday was my third brunch at Citizen Fox. As is to be expected for a Sunday in the mission, the eatery was packed with hungry, hungover hipsters and dreary-eyed tech sector trend-watchers eating and drinking Citizen Fox’s plant-based fare… Also a bluegrass band. (I rather enjoyed the bluegrass band. Impressive, as I don’t really like bluegrass.) When I entered, I was shoulder to shoulder with a dozen other folks, wedged into the defacto reception area. Luckily I’d made a reservation for my party, so we weren’t standing in the doorway very long. Continue reading →

I’m kind of in shock. I made vegan fried eggs. I’ve been obsessed with figuring out how to do this for years. My dad used to make me eggs for breakfast every morning and I missed dippy yolks more than anything. Once I hammer out the exact measurements, I’ll post the recipe.

I had the kind of awful weekend that started on Friday and didn’t end until Monday evening. Ugh. First, Pancakes the dog got sick, meaning an emergency vet visit, a couple hours in the animal hospital, and Tom and I sitting at home nervously waiting to hear if our darling pup needed surgery. After a tense couple hours –mostly of me being curled up in Tom’s lap crying– we got good news that he just needed some meds and a bland diet for a few days.

Saturday was dog-care centric. And then Sunday we fought. We fought the way parents fight when something bad happens to their children. Each of us blamed the other for Pancakes being sick, or misbehaving, or doing whatever. Then things got personal, they got ugly, because that’s the way things go when couples fight. Some emotionally tense situation is a catalyst for the release of all the hurtful things that parties in a relationship have wanted to say for months but have never had a reason to. Everything said a valid concern, but left unsaid to spare the feelings of one’s partner. We didn’t go to bed angry. But we didn’t go to bed happy, either.

Yesterday Tom went to work and I tried to write. But couldn’t. I was still mad, I guess. Still exhausted from the weekend. And feeling betrayed by my partner. To make matters worse, I found out a piece of information he’d been hiding from me. That single tidbit hurt worse than anything he’d said the day before. So I called him at work, crying. And I started yelling at him for things I wasn’t even mad about. The boy thought I had finally lost it.

After telling him he was tantamount to an emotional robot and calling him cruel, I stopped talking to him for the rest of the afternoon. I curled up on the sofa with Pancakes and started watching Lipstick Jungle. In the first episode they had cupcakes and alcohol for a depressed friend. I wanted cupcakes. And alcohol. But together… Continue reading →